112 



receive the impression of miasmata. When yon 

 are exposed day and night during whole months 

 to the torment of insects, the continual irrita- 

 tion of the skin causes febrile commotions; and, 

 from the counteraction so anciently recognized 

 between the dermoid and the gastric systems, 

 injures the functions of the stomach. Digestion 

 first becomes difficult ; the cutaneous inflam- 

 mation excites profuse sweats ; a thirst not to be 

 quenched succeeds ; and, in persons of a feeble 

 constitution, increasing impatience is succeeded 

 by a depression of mind, during which all the 

 pathogenic causes act with violence. It is now 

 neither the dangers of a navigation in small 

 boats, the savage Indians, nor the serpents, cro- 

 codiles, or jaguars, that make the Spaniards 

 dread a voyage on the Oroonoko ; it is, as they 

 say with simplicity, " el sudor y las moscas, the 

 sweatings and the flies." Let us hope, that man, 

 in changing the surface of the soil, will succeed 

 in altering by degrees the constitution of the 

 atmosphere. The insects will diminish, when 

 the old trees of the forest have disappeared ; and 

 when in those now desert countries the rivers 

 are seen bordered with cottages, and the plains 

 covered with pastures and harvests. 



Whoever has lived long in countries infested 

 .by moschettoes will have felt like us, that there 

 exists no radical cure for the torment of these 

 i nsects. The Indians, covered with anot ta, bolar 



